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"So many times we try to find the right emotion. What emotion is going to help you? This is what helps you (raises his fists). Forward motion, getting your legs back, getting up off the bottom, working the whole time. Those are actions. Not one of those was an emotion. Anger, happiness, sad, fear, scared. Not one of those is going to get a judge to mark your name. (raises his fists) This is what marks your name." - Chael Sonnen

The emotionlessness M. Sonnen is actually describing is defensiveness coupled with a need to connect. Without an expressed need to connect from one person to another there is no point to martial arts. And if getting a judge to "mark your name" is the goal it might be an apt quote. But there is a big difference in purpose and hence in practice if the fundamental goal of the activity is not to overcome aggression but to heal conflict.

All action begins "between the ears, " whether arising from the limbic system or the neocortex but if it stayed between the ears then no action would take place. It is through intention that action occurs (even involuntary action).

If the implication is that Love, Success, Pride, Courage, and Loyalty don't exist because they are not measurable, think again. They are only immeasurable objectively in degree of comparison by instruments, but one can certainly see a difference in quantity of courage between a martial artist who learns sniper marksmanship to stave off an armed attacker from a great distance from one who engages the armed attacker within arms reach with nothing more than compassion and moral conviction. It took the largest army in the world many years to settle the insurgent fighting in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. In comparison it took Mohandis Gandhi three weeks to end a civil war by refusing to eat while the fighting went on - and that is with only the relatively rudimentary methods of communication in then underdeveloped India in 1922 for the word of the fast to get out, mostly word of mouth (no texting, tweeting or world wide web).

Pain relievers, like many medicines, are tested using patient feedback because there is no definitive ways of measuring pain, as it is subjective. We can see certain brain activity, measure amounts of drug intake in the subject's body, but the real test of efficacy is if people feel better after taking the pain killer. So, is pain non-existant because it is "between the ears?"

As a simple empirical experiment, choose a person you love and for one hour throw out any negative thoughts you have about them and focus on what makes you love them. Choose a different hour, throw out any positive thoughts about the same person and keep reminding yourself of all the things that person does that you hate. Do it in the person's proximity (magnetic forces always work but the effects are more observable when the masses are within a particular field, same with ki), but do not say a word - just keep thinking either acceptance, forgiveness, compassion, respect, love, or disgust, resentment, anger and a feeling of superiority. Really do it, don't just go through an intellectual exercise. See if the person you focus on notices a difference. That would give you a gross measurement of flow of love at least on a gross level of yes or no.

I also have empirical support, affirmed by experienced aikidoka from outside my dojo, that the principles I've described are valid in action, and my entire expression of aikido is nothing more than embodying some form of beneficent intention, turning off the line of the attack and entering - and no set technique. Osensei meant it when he said budo is love.

where's donuts and coffee? they don't seem to exist either. you would see them, then they disappeared in a blink of an eye.

the donuts and coffee have been reduced through a combination of gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak subatomic forces, and love to their elemental components which are now appearing as stimulants to my animated skin suit, which did all the breaking down without any conscious directives from me...

In my experience action begins by taking action. Sonnen is describing how to succeed at being a professional athlete. Performance psychology, physical excellence, and professionalism are obviously difficult goals requiring years of pain and discipline and are therefore easy to discard in favor of "wishing makes it so" (see Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World).

This is easily demonstrated.

Go to the dojo and stand in front of uke. Feel whatever you want at uke, at yourself, at your teacher, at god, at the earth. Do it for a while to really let it sink in that feelings in the context of physical culture accomplish nothing more than the conjugation of jack and shit. Then take action, observe, adjust, repeat. The difference will be astonishing.

Been sitting on the sidelines for most of this, but at this point I feel the following needs to be said. You can make up all the philosophy/mythology/mental models you want; you don't get to make up the physics you want. This thread now has elements that appear to the lay person, knowledgeable relative to physics. They do not represent the depth or nuance of the actual subject, they are not described in the language of physics (mathematics); they are a layperson's simplification and some statements are downright wrong.

Quantum is the new black; people who have no business using that word, are in fact using it to describe everything from conscienceless to face cream. A doctorate in the right branches of physics allows you to partake in this discussion; years of post doctoral research allows you to propose additions, modifications or other alterations to the science. All of those require replication and peer review to begin to be taken seriously. All else is mental masturbation pulled directly out of one's fundament.

Mental models that describe certain physical sensations and mindsets, that allow people to train and eventually acquire the complex mechanical reality that is expert/master level martial arts, does not require rewriting the fundamental processes that govern the universe. We are not that powerful we are not that important. That we exist at all in our everyday complexity is amazing and requires no magic, neither does randori.

Quantum is the new black; people who have no business using that word, are in fact using it to describe everything from conscienceless to face cream. .

what?!!! are you telling me that there is no such thing as quantum face cream? i knew it! that's Heisenberg bugger was a con artist. he told me with absolute certainty that his quantum face cream would dilate time and possibly space to make me look 10 years younger. he was so convincing, especially when his partner in crime, Bohr, chimed in and approved of the product. i bought a couple cases of quantum face cream. damn it! i am going to ebay these stuffs. maybe some of these suckers.... i meant aikido folks might want to buy some.

Been sitting on the sidelines for most of this, but at this point I feel the following needs to be said. You can make up all the philosophy/mythology/mental models you want; you don't get to make up the physics you want. This thread now has elements that appear to the lay person, knowledgeable relative to physics. They do not represent the depth or nuance of the actual subject, they are not described in the language of physics (mathematics); they are a layperson's simplification and some statements are downright wrong.

Quantum is the new black; people who have no business using that word, are in fact using it to describe everything from conscienceless to face cream. A doctorate in the right branches of physics allows you to partake in this discussion; years of post doctoral research allows you to propose additions, modifications or other alterations to the science. All of those require replication and peer review to begin to be taken seriously. All else is mental masturbation pulled directly out of one's fundament.

Mental models that describe certain physical sensations and mindsets, that allow people to train and eventually acquire the complex mechanical reality that is expert/master level martial arts, does not require rewriting the fundamental processes that govern the universe. We are not that powerful we are not that important. That we exist at all in our everyday complexity is amazing and requires no magic, neither does randori.

I don't have a lot of patience for people getting all mystic about ki. No, there's not some mysterious fifth force undiscovered by scientists but available to martial artists.

I also don't have a lot of patience with people claiming that there's nothing to ki and similar imagery. Every athletic endeavor has their imagery which makes no sense logically, but helps the body move the right way for that situation. Weightlifting--the antithesis of internal arts in a lot of ways--certainly has lots.

And I appreciate the Sonnen quote, but five minutes on google would give me plenty of quotes from well-respected fighters talking about the importance of attitude and intent, which are certainly not measurable in the scientific sense. Even our own Keith talking about the OODA loop doesn't fit in that framework.

Perhaps all ki is is a way to use the mind to organize the body to deliver power that isn't dependent on muscular strength. If so, that's an explanation of why it is relevant, not a proof of why it is not.

Perhaps all ki is is a way to use the mind to organize the body to deliver power that isn't dependent on muscular strength.

Again with the pseudoscience. You guys are killing me. The only sources of power to which humans have access (in the absence of some kind of motor) is muscular contraction and planetary gravity. Why oh why can people not differentiate between mythology, skilful means, and reality?

I think the voices in your head are keeping you from hearing what I'm saying. Where have I said anything about ki incompatible with considering it method of "skillful means" for martial movement? And saying that you're not depending on muscular strength doesn't mean that you're not using muscles at all.

For my part, all I have done is present a model in a very simplified way. The models of quantum mechanics can be expressed relatively simply for a lay perspective, or they can be explained in much greater details based on mathematics, but no matter what, it is still a model - a model in which uncertainty figures heavily from a mathematical perspective.

If you believe a current theory of quantum mechanics, why? Did you replicate the experiments yourself and do all the math? Or are you putting your faith on some scientist you don't even know? If you are, don't you feel llike it may be a little silly to accept a model as fact when every model of physical reality to date has eventually shown itself to be erroneous or incomplete?

I am never surprised when people reject something they've never heard before, even when they will accept theories of others whose math they trust without understanding it (such as anyone who has expressed belief in quantum theory but has not been on the front lines of particle physics research).

According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus) "About 1532 Copernicus had basically completed his work on the manuscript of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium; but despite urging by his closest friends, he resisted openly publishing his views, not wishing—as he confessed—to risk the scorn "to which he would expose himself on account of the novelty and incomprehensibility of his theses."[53]"

100 years later Galileo was put to trial and convicted for publishing supporting evidence that Copernicus was correct in claiming the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around.

But before you dismiss someone else's theory it might be prudent to have your own theory to explain the phenomena of living organisms which live, grow, and evolve through connective interactions. In terms of ki we have a special problem because the sheer complexity of the expression of life force defies the idea it could be categorized so simply as a force of nature in the same vein as gravity or electromagnetic radiation.

However, that implies that there is something simplistic about the four recognized forces of nature. If any of the four forces were a simple thing they could be described with the ease and precision that one might describe the taxonomy of a cat.

The observable facts of gravity may be simple to explain, as are the qualities that give a specific creature the name ‘cat' but why mass attracts mass defies understanding, as does why 30 million years ago the genetic code of some carnivoramorphan's genes mutated toward cat characteristics and other's toward bears, canines, hyenas, etc., and what would cuase such complex changes in a relatively unchanging environment over the course of the prior 30 million years. If the only four forces of the universe are really just gravity, electromagnetism and strong and weak subatomic forces, which of those or combination of those are responsible for the development of a cat?

Carl Sagan wrote in The Demon-Haunted World:

"Spirit" comes from the Latin word "to breathe." What we breathe is air, which is certainly matter, however thin. Despite usage to the contrary, there is no necessary implication in the word "spiritual" that we are talking of anything other than matter (including the matter of which the brain is made), or anything outside the realm of science. On occasion, I will feel free to use the word. Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or of acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both."

(Non-sequitur: Just for fun, here is a picture from TIME Magazine, October 1980 which featured Carl on the cover and had a picture inside that included me. I spent a year and a half working with and travelling the world with Carl Sagan on the COSMOS series in 1979 and 80.)

The idea of the fusion of spirit with science has been broached by other scientists and is not a new idea. The first comparison of the intuitive understanding of life force and the quantification science provides that I ever read, The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra, Ph.D. was published in 1975. A physicist and systems theorist, Capra, who I had the wonderful experience to personally talk with in May 1984 has written a few books on paradigm shifts in science. In the Tao of Physics, published in 43 editions in 23 languages, Capra goes into far greater detail about the then current model of quantum mechanics and how material reality is created through subatomic processes, and that these processes are what constitute matter, not permanently existing subatomic particles.

Hilary, if you want the math and detailed hard science he was coming from, and from which my postulate is based, here is a link to Capra's book in pdf form: http://www.plouffe.fr/simon/math/The...%20Physics.pdf Please let me know if you find anything in there about quantum mechanics that is inaccurate, doesn't hold up to recent scientific understanding, is based on unreliable studies or is just plain dead wrong, and please back it up with sources like Capra did, particulary if your sources contradict the idea that matter is continually becoming and being destroyed at the subatomic level, a fundamental aspect of my postulate.

Capra writes this in The Tao of Physics: With the concept of the quantum field, modern physics has found an unexpected answer to the old question of whether matter consists of indivisible atoms or of an underlying continuum. The field is a continuum which is present everywhere in space and yet in its particle aspect has a discontinuous, ‘granular' structure. The two apparently contradictory concepts are thus unified and seen to be merely different aspects of the same reality. As always in a relativistic theory, the unification of the two opposite concepts takes place in a dynamic way: the two aspects of matter transform themselves endlessly into one another. "

"The field theories of modern physics have led not only to a new view of subatomic particles but have also decisively modified our notions about the forces between these particles. The field concept was originally linked to the concept of force, and even in quantum field theory it is still associated with the forces between particles. The electromagnetic field, for example, can manifest itself as a ‘free field' in the form of travelling waves/photons, or it can play the role of a field of force between charged particles. In the latter case, the force manifests itself as the exchange of photons between the interacting particles. The electric repulsion between two electrons, for example, is mediated through these photon exchanges.

This new notion of a force may seem difficult to understand, but it becomes much clearer when the process of exchanging a photon is pictured in a space-time diagram. The diagram below (please see source for all diagrams)shows two electrons approaching each other, one of them emitting the photon (denoted by ~4 at the point A, the other one absorbing it at the point B. When the first electron emits the photon it reverses its direction and changes its velocity .(as can be seen from the different direction and inclination of its world line), and so does the second electron when it absorbs the photon. In the end, the two electrons fly apart, having repelled each other through the exchange of the photon. The full interaction between the electrons will involve a series of photon exchanges, and as a result the electrons will appear to deflect one another along smooth curves.

In terms of classical physics, one would say that the electrons exert a repulsive force on one another. This, however, is now seen to be a very imprecise way of describing the situation. Neither of the two electrons ‘feels' a force when they approach each other. All they do is interact with the exchanged photons. The force is nothing but the collective macroscopic effect of these multiple photon exchanges. The concept of force is therefore no longer useful in subatomic physics. It is a classical concept which we associate (even if only subconsciously) with the Newtonian idea of a force being felt over a distance. In the subatomic world there are no such forces, but only interactions between particles, mediated through fields, that is, through other particles. Hence, physicists prefer to speak about interactions, rather than about forces.

According to quantum field theory, all interactions take place through the exchange of particles. In the case of electro- magnetic interactions, the exchanged particles are photons; nucleons, on the other hand, interact through the much stronger nuclear force-or ‘strong interaction'-which manifests itself as the exchange of a new kind of particles called ‘mesons'. There are many different types of mesons which can be exchanged between protons and neutrons. The closer the nucleons are to each other, the more numerous and heavy the mesons they exchange. The interactions between nucleons are thus linked to the properties of the exchanged mesons and these, in turn, interact mutually through the exchange of other particles. For this reason, we shall not be able to understand the nuclear force on a fundamental level without understanding the whole spectrum of subatomic particles.

In quantum field theory, all particle interactions can be pictured in space-time diagrams, and each diagram is associated with a mathematical expression which allows one to calculate the probability for the corresponding process to occur. The exact correspondence between the diagrams and the mathe- matical expressions was established in 1949 by Richard Feynman, since when the diagrams have been known as Feynman diagrams. A crucial feature of the theory is the creation and destruction of particles. (Poster's emphasis) For example, the photon in our diagram is created in the process of emission at point A, and is destroyed when it is absorbed at point B. Such a process can only be conceived in a relativistic theory where particles are not seen as indestructible objects, but rather as dynamic patterns involving a certain amount of energy which can be redistributed when new patterns are formed."

So in a nutshell, what I have postulated could well be integrated into the current, modern scientific viewpoint, if for an objective system of measurements of either ki or its effects. Or it could be proven wrong, but if it is proven wrong then it will require another postulate to take its place. As of now, scientists can scarcely describe, and only as probabilities of potential events, the nature of atomic structure, and then only how the atomic structures act when in the form of chemical elements and compounds. No one has yet tackled the fundamental nature of what makes elements of the earth get up and walk around with purpose. They can describe the chemical and mechanical processes that occur in conjunction but they cannot explain the difference between a living body and a corpse except through function.

For naysayers, please produce an alternate explanation, postulate or theory using any science you choose, to explain how the elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen naturally come together to form amino acids that build into complex organisms capable of consciousness through any number of senses.

And if you study aikido, please refer to the book Aikido, 1958 by K. Ueshiba, under the guidance of Morihei Ueshiba, specifically the section titled "Basic Knowledge," and offer your theory or postulate on what Ueshiba was talking about when he mentions "#4. Stream of Spirit," and "#7. Extention of Power," particulary in regard to the distinction made between "spirit power" and "force power." If you don't believe these things exist, excuse me if I express incomprehensibility that anyone would dedicate himself or herself to any practice in which one believes 20% of the "Basic Knowledge" of the practice to be the Founder's belief in fantasy.

What I have offered as a postulate is a model for the description of life force (ki) that can be applied and observed through the practice of aikido. It is replicable, predicts outcomes, and has so far stood in the face of challenges. As I am personally not interested in models that have flaws, please disprove it or replace it with something better, as to just spout off about how wrong it is does not make one's point of view reflective of truth.

It must be very interesting operating in a world of involuntary action. Suddenly you are standing in front of the refrigerator without intending to get yourself a beer...

I'm curious as to how you get out of bed in the morning without intending to? How does your car get started without you intending to turning the ignition switch? Once it self starts, does it sense where you want to go? Oh, wait, you don't intend to go anywhere, suddenly you are just going. Are you happy wherever you end up because you never intended to go to a specific place? Someone else in charge of your body? On auto-pilot 24/7?

Interesting conjecture that you can do anything without some intention. Even involuntary actions begin with intention. Please name one human action that does not arise from intention.

Again with the pseudoscience. You guys are killing me. The only sources of power to which humans have access (in the absence of some kind of motor) is muscular contractions and planetary gravity. Why oh why can people not differentiate between mythology, skilful means, and reality?

Hmm... I had no idea that Adolph Hitler could convince an entire country's populace to elect him and support him in getting rid of Jews and trying to conquer the world merely through his muscle contraction and planetary gravity. And all this time I thought it was the power of his oratorial skills and his skill at propaganda... see - you learn something new every day!

Sensei Ellis I thank you for your kind consideration. I now must point out a fact that my poor wife finds tiresome, given she hears it several time a week, for decades, who can blame her. Concerning the name Hilary, one “l” is for boys and two “ll’s” are for girls, and only boys named Hilary know this. Now so do all of you. Cherish this knowledge, hold it close for it is precious.

Sensei Ellis I thank you for your kind consideration. I now must point out a fact that my poor wife finds tiresome, given she hears it several time a week, for decades, who can blame her. Concerning the name Hilary, one "l" is for boys and two "ll's" are for girls, and only boys named Hilary know this. Now so do all of you. Cherish this knowledge, hold it close for it is precious.

My apologies - I actually received a reminder for my annual eye test just this past week, I will now be acting on that.

Quantum physics is an area of physics, meaning that its research submits to scientific standards in observation, data processing, reasoning and presentation of theory. The fact that people trust quantum physicists without having to reproduce the experiments and the calculations themselves means that they are confident that those people would follow the guidelines of their profession before offering propositions. If one of them was found out not to follow the scientific method, his work would be automatically invalidated.

Copernic and Galileo's trials were not conducted by scientific commitees on the basis of the respect of the scientific method, but by moral and political authorities based on their view of how people SHOULD see the world. Do not insult your contradictors by putting them in the same bag.

You seem to see life as a mystery that cannot be explained without throwing away most of the scientific discoveries of the past two centuries. Well you are wrong. There are still unexplained facts, but basically life as a phenomenon is a property of matter emerging from complex molecular interaction, basically the point where chemistry and biology mix up. No need to summon a fifth fundemental force that particle accelerators could not measure but bare-handed aikidoka could.

I will pass on the cat paragraph because it does not make any sense.

And by the way, being on the same picture as a famous scientist does not make one as knowledgeabe or credible.

Concerning The Tao of Physics, the book makes some parallels between some scientific discoveries and the interpretation of the world by some Eastern traditions. However, those parallels do not constitute a validation of the latter by the former (or vice cersa), because they do not satisfy proper scientific reasoning conditions. You can find them beautiful or interesting, but you cannot go any further. Proving one does not prove the other.

Sensei Ellis I thank you for your kind consideration. I now must point out a fact that my poor wife finds tiresome, given she hears it several time a week, for decades, who can blame her. Concerning the name Hilary, one "l" is for boys and two "ll's" are for girls, and only boys named Hilary know this. Now so do all of you. Cherish this knowledge, hold it close for it is precious.

...Suddenly you are standing in front of the refrigerator without intending to get yourself a beer...

And how is this a bad thing?

I am project-oriented...Part of my job... Everything is a verb. Intent causes action, actions are verbs. I think sometimes we uses examples that are really just exercises of poor grammar. For example, to love someone to death, if love is a verb is ... well... um... I tend to agree that mens rea is not an action, it is a state of being. Emotion for me is more of a description of my state of being. If I raise my hand in anger that is different than raising my fist in defiance, is different than extending my hand in friendship. All three examples are simeple actions of my hand; the state of mind I possess while performing the action is different.

Anyway... I think intent is important to ki. If I remember correctly in Budo Renshu O'Sensei writes about kokoro and the proper union of mind (intent) and body. In this sense, I tend to see "heart" as a willfull disposition; the intention of mind to accomplish a goal, and response of body to act on that intent. To express "heart" is to have both the drive and ability to carry out a task.

When athletes speak about drive, heart, intent, or other motivational factors in their careers, I think they are trying to align their capacity to strive for a goal with a goal. i.e. to have something to fight [for]. I am not sure if it is fair to criticize an athlete for aligning their motivation with a goal that defines success in a sport. In Sonnen's case (as with MMA fighters), a route to victory is to acquire more round points than your competitor.

This past week in Florida, Saotome sensei spend several minutes speaking about the seriousness of budo training. Many of his regular students have heard the speech before, but in the context of my post, I bring it up to illustrate the importance of matching our intention to do something with our ability to do something. Let's just say sensei does not share the same confidence in our ability to defend ourselves as our intention may imply... The road to somewhere, I think, is paved with good intentions...

To Benjamin's point... I still think "ki" has more to do with efficient muscular and skeletal structure, leverage, rotation, and subconscious response (from uke). I think to Hugh's point, there are a number of ways in which to habitualize these traits into your movement, one of which in mnemonic devices.

When it comes to Ki first a person has to get to grips with it's reality. Until then they are just using other than or trying to convince themselves Ki is something else.

Intent......mmmm.....much link is given to intent and action. I've said before this is only one factor and given far too much importance as a one only thing. There's far more to learn about intent itself than thinking it can be a substitute word for mind.

To understand intent forget mind for it is not of the mind....it is of the spirit. Thus it is to understand what intent does.

One thing it does is to focus the mind.

The other thing it does is direct energy.

Now it is too simplistic to say intention causes action for there are at least three other factors of equal importance when talking action. There is desire, there is purpose and there is decision. All these affect energy and indeed motion.

Then there is the major factor I've not heard anyone go into and that is the factor of type of intention.

So we have here spiritual disciplines which come before mind and body. The correct ones bring about spirit mind and body coordination.

Then there is even more. Then one may realize the type of intention and purpose etc. Ueshiba was telling you about and using and demonstrating, the type of intention. Devine intention. Corky translates it as benificent.......very good. A spiritual connection with devine from which comes Ki.

Since you made me read all that. Don’t confuse faith as an expectation of future outcome based upon previous experience, with dogmatic faith, which by definition can have no proof; it’s faith. I often use the former, but consider the latter to be not only the null hypothesis of rationality but the potential downfall of civilization as we know it; the thing most likely to prevent humanity from reaching the global stewardship phase of civilization. But I digress this is an aikido forum.

Sorry Corkey you don’t get to turn me into uke in this argument, I neither have to defend the scientific method, nor do I have to refute your conflation of sub atomic physics, abiogenesis, the Quackenbush spirituality project, Usheba’s aikido, the derivation of feline existence as an expression of fundamental forces or how hard it is to make a really good soufflé.

My current working definition of Ki is “the skillful expression of capable intent”, your mileage may vary and this is a work in progress, as is life. That we use mental models to define our training methods or provide some form of feedback we can key off of, to develop difficult to describe and complex body kinematics is understandable, acceptable, and fully encouraged. Learning through simple sensitivity exercises and drills that together develop the interlocking aspects of connected body and stability, rather than diagramming the whole shebang and applying Runge-Kutta, yields far better results and does not annoy the pig.

If a personal philosophy, spiritual model or epistemology of enumerating pin dancers gets you through the day, well bully for you. That is the thing about personal philosophies, they are personal. But, when you postulate a personal theory that portends to redefine physics without the math, nor the ability to predict outcomes, then you are stepping into the pool with fierce intellectual big boys who think orders of magnitude above your pay grade (FYI I sure as hell am not in that club either). To wrap your "perfect model" in technical jargon implies you know what you are talking about; in this respect you don’t. I have a degree in physics and I am unambiguously unqualified to make statements such as yours; I am just educated enough to know that.

As to your aikido, I have neither touched your fudotai nor jostled your fudoshin (present endeavors excepted). Maybe these ideas have made you a sublime master of the art, maybe not. If they have improved your art that is great and we expect to see great things from you.

Quantum mechanics is defined in math not “described in greater detail” (serious cart before the horse action here). Go learn to solve the Schrodinger equation and you will have learned the alphabet. With a little work you will soon be utterly flummoxed as is the warp and woof of most human kind, nerds included. You are allowed to jump out of your sandbox, just make sure you are sporting the right equipment to stick the landing.